


Afterlife

by prettyneko



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 20:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyneko/pseuds/prettyneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hindsight is truly 20/20. In the Afterlife Peter Pettigrew gets a chance to review his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterlife

My story isn’t that grand, or tormented. I was raised by a muggleborn witch who had been widowed and left with a two year old child who had no understanding of why daddy wasn't coming home anymore. She had lost her love and fell back on the only support she still had available, which was her father who was a very strict Catholic, one who did not approve of witchry and magic.

 

In life there was much that I did not realize or understand, but in death... well, they say looking back is 20/20. I see it all so clearly now without all the confusion and conditioning of my youth.

 

Because I showed signs of magic I was not allowed to play with other children, my grandfather would not allow me. With the eyes of the dead I can clearly see how he changed and manipulate my mother in her grief, turning her into someone who could only spout the words that came out of his own mouth. She'd been a kind and gentle woman in my infancy, but once we lived with him that woman became tainted and more harsh with the eyes of judgment.

 

So there I was, a friendless child. Told how I was evil and sinful from birth, that I needed to live and redeem myself in the eyes of God. How I needed to embrace Jesus as my savior. I remember going to church and being mesmerized by the beauty of the hymns sung, and the pure faith I saw in others. I thought that I was truly the seed of evil, and that my touch and friendship would taint others. Only my mother could touch me. Only my mother could comfort me when I was sick, or when I hurt myself. She was all the love and affection I had, but she wasn't perfect.

 

I almost did not attend Hogwarts. Now I can see that this was the last time my mother was ever truly herself, as she had been with my father. She said it was needed, that without the school I would not learn to control the magic and keep it repressed. That otherwise it would go wild and be harmful. So I was allowed to go.

 

I learned on that trip into the wizarding world for the first time since I was two that my father had been an Auror and had died in action. That he had attended Hogwarts and had been a Gryffindor. She told me glorified tales about him and I boarded the train with the goal of becoming a Gryffindor just like my father, one I had never truly known.

 

I almost did not get sorted into Gryffindor. I had argued and argued with that hat, determined to go into the Gryffindor House when the Hat wanted me in Hufflepuff. Perhaps if I had listened to the Hat things would have been different. Perhaps I wouldn't have become the harbinger of death and despair to all of those I would come to love and cherish.

 

Again, hindsight is 20/20.

 

I became a Gryffindor like my father before me, and I met three men who utterly changed my life. James Potter, Sirius Black and... Remus Lupin. I gravitated to them like a moth to their flames. Brightly burning flames beckoning to my damaged soul. To my eleven year old self they had shined so very bright. Those three became my anchor. No, they became my entire universe.

 

Looking back now I see how unhealthy it had been. My friendship to them border on obsessed. I can say bordered because back then I suffered from an on and off again obsessive compulsive disorder regarding cleanliness. Again, my grandfather. He was very strict. No abusive, but everything had to be perfect to live with him. So it came and went during the school breaks. That was true obsession. My friendship to the other boys merely bordered on it.

 

I also had a chronic low opinion of myself. I had no self confidence. I wonder how they put up with me. I was always singing their praises, though. They could do no wrong. But then again, because they were now my universe, I had been deathly afraid of losing them. I would never do anything to lose them.

 

Puberty was another trial for me. I hit it later that the others. But then I was always smaller, slighter. Soft and girlish. I tried dating a couple girls. I didn't like the whole intimacy thing with them. I guess perhaps it didn't help they used me to try and get closer to James, Sirius and Remus.

 

Then I had a wet dream in which a guy was the center of. Alright, so I had seen Sirius naked in the shower that day, and it was him. I guess in death I can be honest about it. That set off a chain reaction within me, I guess. I fell for each of them. Hard. They were each perfect. James was the golden boy, the one everyone loved. Sirius the playboy everyone loved to hate and hated to love. And Remus. I heard a girl once say he was the boy you would take home to your mother, but I didn't agree. Remus wasn't the safe option. Remus was... perfect.

 

By this point I not only knew my friend was a werewolf, but also was an animagus. I had gotten over my fear of him and accepted him. He was kind, considerate, thoughtful. Yes, there was that hint of danger to him as well. There was also this whole emotional depth to him that none of these other girls knew. He was... perfect. Remus Lupin was no consolation prize after sowing your wild oats. Remus was the ultimate prize. An enigma. The good boy with the lone wolf bad boy all wrapped up into one being.

 

Yes, my crushes started on equal footing between the three of them, but I'm sure by now you can tell that the other two eventually were left in the dust.

 

But I was a damaged boy. When on home for break after finding out I fancied blokes my mum caught me wanking to a bloke in a mag. That hadn't been a good break after that. I became doubly sinful. Doubly evil. I was preached to and preyed over. I was lectured and argued with. My mother cried. I cried. And I wished it all over. I wished I could be normal. It was drilled into my head that my friends would never accept me. Never accept what I was. It would be disgusting to them, even if they shared my sin of magic.

 

For over a year I lived in abject fear of them finding out. But during that year I grew ever closer to Remus. I went from having a crush on him, to loving him. I remember how he soothed me, a seventeen year old boy still terrified of the dark, by reading to me when I would forget my night light and wake up to darkness in the middle of the night. I wouldn't be able to sleep for a while after that unless Remus read to me. I cannot remember the number of times I fell asleep on him or in his bed. I cherished those times, and I felt incredibly guilty for it.

 

It was Sirius that first found out the truth. Joking at first, then a foolish and fearful comment from me made it real and he knew. It had seemed as if all my fears were coming true. I began to panic. I do not know how he calmed me and brought me back down, that point in time, even in death, is still rather fuzzy. I imagine the fear had to of been pretty powerful for it to still be clouding the past like it is, but I got the general idea of it. And you know what? I think that was the first and only time Sirius was ever so serious. That I knew of at least.

 

Months passed after until finally something broke. I didn't know then, but I know now Sirius had a hand in it. Poking and prodding Remus until one night my fears were proved false. A kiss. Just one single kiss and my walls had come down.

 

Merlin, was there ever a love so strong. We loved fiercely. My grandfather died and I never saw my mother again. I was free of them, and soon free from Hogwarts. Remus became my center of the universe, with Sirius, James, Lily and eventually little Harry orbiting in the outskirts; still important, but they were not my Remus.

 

Perhaps we were not as careful with our relationship as we had thought. The missions Remus took among the werewolves were dangerous and they put a strain on us, but I was Remus' constant. I never wavered and was always there. I, for once, felt like I belonged. I had a purpose. The emotional baggage was still very much there, but I had never been more stable and balanced.

 

That did not last. The Death Eaters had gotten to the pack Remus was currently with before the Order did, and somehow they learned about me and what I was to Remus. They tried manipulating me, the Death Eaters that had come for me remembered how gullible and easily manipulated I had been back in school. I hadn't wavered. Not until Remus was threatened. They had proof they had hands on him. Could I sacrifice my everything? Or could I do the equally horrible thing and give over the secret I had been entrusted with?

 

I was worn down and broken. I can remember the way I sobbed as I wrote the address in Godric's Hollow down.

 

I don't know how Sirius found me after that, because I had wandered. I was broken. Released and left to suffer the repercussions of my betrayal and unable to get word to the right people, they hadn't released me until I was too late. I had been going to allow Sirius to kill me. It was my every intent upon raising my wand to just force him into it. But in the last moment Remus' face had risen in my mind. I had lost control of myself. I had been utterly broken. I spouted nonsense and cast, my magic going wild; I had never been the strongest caster if truth was told, but I made an indent then.

 

I lost my finger in the burst of magic; it hadn't been intended. I wasn't in a state of mind that would have allowed me to think of something like that. I was a rat by then and gone. My one thought was Remus. Always Remus. I had to get to Remus. I had to protect him. I had to save him. But I was a rat. Small, and unable to switch back for fear of discovery. I ended up losing myself in the mind of a rat. I turned and warped and ended up the pet of a young wizard boy. I never made it back to Remus, but I had luck of another kind. At the Weasley residence I would at least occasionally hear about him.

 

By the time I was caught it had been too late to save me. I was a victim of my own mind. Left to myself I became unrecognizable. The guilt and the sins of childhood on through my adulthood ravaged my body in rat and human form.

 

So I let them paint me evil. I let them have their villain. I let them believe the worst in me. My heart had long been shattered. I had already long lost Remus. My love. My everything. When I escaped that Full Moon I cast aside everything that had still lingered of who I was, and I became the worthless creature that would cower and seek out a deranged wizard that was nothing more than a monster.

 

I survived to watch the man I had loved love and marry another and have a child with her. I died. I am here, now.

 

They are here. They are all here. Like me, they know the truth of our bittersweet past. This one last time I get to see him and be held by him. I got to ask for forgiveness and receive it. One last time the Marauders got to be together. We laughed, we cried.

 

Its time to move on, now. I'm not afraid anymore. We're among the lucky ones. We are getting another chance at life. We don't know what this new life will give us, but we're smiling at each other. James is saying how there is no way we wont find each other again. Sirius is laughing as Lily mentions how our souls are connected, even to Severus who, even in death, stands awkwardly off to the side.

 

I look at Remus as he looks at me. “Yes, we will. I know we will.” I am aware that is the most confidant I have ever been, and I can only hope that in this new life I will be able to keep it.

**Author's Note:**

> One thing I had found in reading Peter Pettigrew fics was a lack of exploring the possibilities with him. So this is me putting a new spin on him based on the Peter Pettigrew I play in a Marauder Era game. I hope people like it and it worked out well. I would also love comments regarding it. No flaming or anything please. There is constructive discussion, and there is being rude.


End file.
